San Diego’s congressional delegation reacts to release of Mueller report

Pictured at a congressional luncheon two years ago are Reps. Susan Davis, Scott Peters, and Juan Vargas, all San Diego Democrats. Davis and Peters said they are left with lingering questions from the special counsel’s report.

Union-Tribune file photo

Members of the congressional delegation are concerned about unresolved obstruction of justice issues.

Several members of San Diego’s congressional delegation said they still have questions and are still troubled by issues brought up in the long-awaited report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Freshman Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, rattled off several tweets a few hours after its release.

“Mueller must testify before Congress and explain the ‘difficult issues’ that prevented him from making a ‘traditional prosecutorial judgment,’” tweeted Levin, referring to a passage in the report that describes Mueller’s decision not to recommend criminal prosecution of President Donald Trump.

Levin also criticized Barr’s handling of the public release of the report, which occurred after Barr conducted a press conference this morning. Barr spoke about Trump’s anger and frustration during the investigation and attempted to defend him from the obstruction of justice issues raised in the report.

“I think, despite the Attorney General’s spin job, or whatever you want to call it, he really did distract people tremendously from what was actually in the report,” said Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, in an interview.

She said it is important for Congress to take a closer, more rigorous look at the report, beginning with getting testimony from Mueller.

“The report is done for the public and ... they definitely need to get the full context,” she said. “There are just so many questions, and Congress has an important role to play.”

Meanwhile Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, similarly called for Congress to take a closer look at Mueller’s findings and expressed concern over Barr’s actions.

“I’m appalled that AG Barr, who is bound to serve as America’s lawyer, not Mr. Trump’s, politicized the release of this report rather than letting the facts speak for themselves, and even allowed a briefing to the White House in advance of delivering the report to Congress,” Peters said in a statement. “These failures of independence in the Department of Justice necessitate that Congress investigate further on its own.”

On the other hand many Republicans have come to the defense of Barr, including House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield.

“Notwithstanding the partisan echo chamber to do otherwise, I fully approve of how Attorney General Barr has balanced legal requirements with the public’s need to know in handling the release of the report,” McCarthy said in a statement.

“He complied with the law by protecting grand jury material, classified information, and the integrity of the investigative process. Democrats want to keep searching for imaginary evidence that supports their claims, but it is simply not there.”

When it came to the contents of the report, a primary concern among San Diego’s members were issues related to the president potentially obstructing justice.

The report Thursday offered more clarity on why Mueller’s team did not reach a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice in an effort to influence the special counsel’s investigation.

“The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment” the report states.

“At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

Among the difficult issues raised, the report highlights that under Justice Department practice a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime, and a president has a great deal of constitutional authority to give orders to other government employees.

Still, that lack of a definitive answer and Mueller identifying 10 instances of possible obstruction by Trump, left some Democrats with more questions.

Davis said that Mueller and his team, although not feeling they were in a position to prosecute, did provide plenty of information and gave a road map for congress to take a closer look. Similarly Peters, citing the Mueller report, said Congress should exercise its oversight authority to ensure the public knows all the facts.

Levin struck a more accusatory tone. Alongside a passage in Mueller’s report about the president’s efforts to influence the investigation were “mostly unsuccessful” because people around the president declined to carry out his orders, Levin presumably addressed Trump in a Tweet: “You aren’t exonerated from obstructing justice because you didn’t succeed.”

While some local Democrats have weighed in, San Diego County’s lone congressional Republican representative, Rep. Duncan Hunter, also briefly addressed the report in one of his Facebook videos.

The Alpine Republican, who was one of the earliest supporters of Trump, had toured the Arizona-Mexico border and visited detention facilities Wednesday. At the end of a video documenting his trip he expressed indifference about the report’s release and said it’s important to focus on immigration.

“The Mueller report came out today. Who cares?” Hunter said. “There is no collusion, we know that. We also know that that’s fake news.

“This is real news. This is a real crisis. America is being overrun and it needs to stop.”

Tony Krvaric, chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County, said he had not yet read the report Thursday morning but, based on what he’d read and seen on social media, he doesn’t believe it has changed many people’s minds.

“At this point the average voter has moved on, and Democrats keep beating this drum at their own peril, because we have real issues at this time we should be discussing,” he said.

Several other prominent California Republican voices expressed a similar sentiment.

The California Republican Party, linking to a story that discussed Barr’s press conference, tweeted, “No collusion. No obstruction. Time to move on.”

McCarthy, most prominent Republican voice in the House of Representatives, said Thursday’s events changed nothing.

“It is time to move on,” he said. “Americans deserve better than this partisan quest to vilify a political opponent and I urge our Democratic colleagues in the House to put their emotions and opinions aside and instead use that passion to come to the table and work on real solutions for all Americans.”